Hey folks!

Continuing with this series, this week we’ll be going over the covert Tosh missions, also known as “the holdovers from StarCraft: Ghost. A lot of the canceled stealth shooter’s story elements was introduced into StarCraft II, starting with this arc. Since Nova is without a doubt the most developer character in the expanded books, there’s a decent amount to go through, so let’s get to it!

######Characters

Gabriel Tosh: Tosh is from the planet of Haji, born into one of the last practicing families of the dying Voodoo religion. Tosh’s burgeoning psionic abilities were interpreted as gifts from the spirits, something Tosh himself dismissed. Soon he was recruited into the military, which recognized his powers and brought him into the Ghost Program. When the Confederacy fell and the Dominion took over, Tosh saw Mengsk as a new hope for the sector, having seen the ruin the neglect of the Confederacy wrought. He was recruited into the Ghost Program as part of the first generation to be trained under the Dominion.

He was assigned to the training group Team Blue alongside Nova Terra, and through shared adversity the two started a short relationship. Yet when one of their training exercises became a rescue operation of children of the Confederate Old Families, Tosh was hit by a mind blast Nova unleashed to stop the zerg, and hospitalized. The damage from the blast made him immune to the memory wipes of the Dominion, so when Mengsk had the team wiped and the children they rescued executed, Tosh abandoned the ghost program, disgusted after seeing Mengsk for what he was. He was recruited by a shadowy figure named Jackson Hauler, who lead the Dominion’s psi ops squadron “Nova Squadron” (no relation to the character Nova). This man was the leader of the spectres, the next generation of ghosts that used a gas named terrazine to enhance their powers, and promised Tosh that they could take down Mengsk and bring peace to the galaxy.

As terrazine undid mind wipes, it was easy for Tosh to steal members of the Dominion’s ghost program and reveal all the evil acts Mengsk had ordered them to do. He recruited most of his old team, and attempted to do so for Nova, but even with her memories she remained loyal. Tosh and the spectres attempted to kidnap Mengsk, hoping to broadcast his crimes to the sector, but was foiled by Nova. Nova then found her way to Jackson Hauler’s fortress, but in his attempts to capture her, Hauler killed Tosh’s friend, Kath Toom.

As they pulled me away from the dead bodies of my parents, soaked in blood, I kept wondering why the man with the gun had let me live.

- Comrades Yüt’ Üok, Laas’ Assun, and Milka’ Akk please enter the room. The First leader is awaiting. -

Said the Crab-like alien, they have four legs, two giant claws as any earth evolved Crab but with tentacles beneath the claw which made it possible to manipulate small objects and make them to the space stage. They were using a white and black tunic on the torso and some red straps on the legs, straps that carried medals and others honorably titles. They entered the room, it wasn’t underwater but instead had a very humid environment. The three entered the room, they weren’t apprehensive. No. The First leader is not a leader anymore, he had no real power and probably would just give some tips as they become members of the species council.

- First, congratulations. You deserved it, the people and the council have elected you three to this position.

Congratulated the First leader with “tics” leaving his mouth as this was their form of verbal communication. His shell is very thick and gray - a sign of his very old age.

- Now. I will tell why, why we operate in the way we do, why, besides all... Disadvantages we keep allied with the United Earth Government. You think that this is bullshit, that the old ones are too traditionalist, that it doesn’t make any sense, it’s always like this. An old trio leaves and a new one comes in, eager, wanting to change everything. Thinking that the only reason that we keep that is that we adopted a human government ideology. -

The three grew in size, a signal of anxiety and stress. An armed guard moved in their direction and the First leader dispensed the soldier.

- No need to feel that way, we are all friends, all comrades. -

- I was born a slave, as you all know in the history books. It says that we made a revolution because enough was enough. No. It was because humanity made an enemy, and they were our oppressors. -

“ATTENTION, ATTENTION, SHIP UNDER RAID, ALL SECURITY PERSONAL ON COMBAT POSITIONS!” Aüt’ Üaa - soon to be known as the First Leader was in a dark cell, cramped with his own kind. He heard loud explosions, but the hull seemed to be intact. He prayed in his mind to something, some god, some higher being to kill his slavers, even if he had to die. Some in his cell were in fear to die, but many wished to die before they go to another labor camp. More explosions, it was getting near his cell. He heard some laser weapon being fired, the noise of the batteries on full power, and then - light. A biped cre

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

What's crazy in the whole conversation about Mexican drug cartels is the lack of deserved emphasis on US government involvement in the formation of drug trafficking networks that established what we know as the Mexican Cartels. This is what led to the violence in Mexico today with Mexican cities taking up all top five spots in the rank of cities with highest murder rate in the world where they are not officially at war.

Where do we even begin? US government involvement in Mexican affairs goes far back most notably following the 1911 Mexican Revolution with the right wing coup d'état and assassination of the democratically elected Mexican President Francisco Madero in 1913 with the support of US ambassador to Mexico Henry Lane Wilson. But we don't have to go that far.

Let's start off in July 2, 1975 with the arrest by Mexican police of Alberto Sicilia Falcon who was then the world leader in cocaine and marijuana trafficking earning $3.6 million a week, which was really big back then. Apparently he wasn't Mexican, but rather Cuban. He told his interrogators that he was trained in Fort Jackson in a secret war against Fidel Castro helping move weapons to certain groups in Central America in exchange for his movement of drugs. Funny enough, Falcon would escape from Lecumberri prison in 1976 in much the same way and with as much fanfare as Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán 40 years later - through a lit tunnel from his cell. Too bad Falcon was captured three days later and was transferred to a maximum security prison known as Las Palmas till 1999. It's been reported somewhere in the interwebs that he died of a stroke in 2011.

So what happened after Falcon was arrested? He was reported to have been able to manage his drug empire from prison, but I'm sure it wouldn't be as effective as much as if he was free. So who filled his position? Well let's examine the time period. This is 1975. Prior to this, Mexico wasn't as relevant in the international drug trade as she would later become. It was the "French Connection" that dominated the drug domain with Corsican and Sicilian mafias running heroin from Indochina and Turkey to be processed in Marseilles and transshipped via Canada. This network formed around World War II following US intelligence recruiting of American Mafia figures. It started with Operation Underworld where Naval Intelligence recruited the likes of Charles "Lucky" Luciano to protect the American northeastern seaboards from Nazi sabotage. His contacts also

First Previous

"We're detecting highly increased levels of neutrino readings," a woman said.

"What's that, Kate?" a man asked.

"Did you check the instruments?" his colleague added. "Maybe the atmosphere's messing with the equipment. When's the last time it was cleaned?" Vutra, another scientist, added.

"Yesterday. I reset all the instruments and checked the data again. At 24:10, there was an unexplained burst of neutrinos from the Asteroid Belt."

"Near midnight, then. Sure it's not an FTL drive of some kind then?"

"Those make photon and graviton waves, not neutrinos. This was something else. Do I have permission to contact the other stations to see if they got the same readings?"

The scientist's tablet pinged with a new message. "Open it," Vutra said.

She obliged. An audio file played out. "We're getting strange neutrino readings from the Asteroid Belt, have you guys also experienced this? If so, call me back as soon as possible so we can get other labs on board, triangulate these things, and prepare a report for the MDC science division."

Kate sighed. "Believe me now?"

Harry and Vutra nodded. "Let's see if they're getting this, too."

"We should contact the science division about this immediately," Henry said. "I'll go send the call."

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Ynell'ser's mandibles were being brushed by his favorite Rank 2 engineer. The dust of Earth's air seemed to build up over time in the fine hair on them. Nyli'men smiled. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes, I'm just quite stressed. I'm beginning to think that the humans and Gaia weren't completely forward with their motives."

"Completely? Certainly not. Their movies are full of scheming politicians, and surely that idea didn't pop up out of the ground somewhere. But yes, I suspect there is more to them than we think."

A notification popped up and Ynell'ser swiped at it. "Rank 4, we have detected a speeding space beacon exiting the system."

Ynell'ser sat up and quickly brushed the excess dust off of his clothes. He cleaned his eyes and placed his forearms in a presentable position. Nyli'men moved out of the vision of the de

1. The Moebius Factor (Wings of Liberty) Whole city is lost to the zerg apocalypse. You fly rooftop to rooftop rescuing stranded personnel. Destroy data cores. Iconic face off with Kerrigan herself. I found this to be the best mission in SC2, just for fun factor and it gives me Left for Dead or Resident Evil raccoon city zombie vibes. ----‐‐---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Sudden Strike (Nova Covert Ops) protect Horner’s base, Zerg run through snow covered trenches, use jetpacks to navigate cliffs, beautiful map and fun concept. Nova feels like a badass and the snow cliffs and effects are simply beautiful. ----‐‐---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Enemy Intelligence (Nova Covert Ops) Garrison infantry to defend your base from the Zerg. Then the map enters phase 2 where Nova infiltrates the Defenders of Man. Honestly really impressed with how ambitious the phase 2 is. The atmosphere of the infiltration phase is so immersive and action packed. ----‐‐---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. Harvest of Screams/Supreme (Heart of the Swarm) I found both these missions to be refreshing. Harvest of Screams has some really fun mechanics with the flash freeze and aggressive wildlife attacking your base. Supreme is boss fight galore and some impressive ones at that. ----‐‐---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Flashpoint (Nova Covert Ops) Storywise, this mission is a breathtaking masterpiece. Nova reclaims her memories as flashbacks and its beautifully executed. The mission objective also has some interesting mechanics where you get to choose the type of zerg you battle as Nova remembers how the zerg invasion happened.

Final Thoughts: Unfornuately Legacy of the Void fell flat. I didn't feel like they put enough passion into the maps. A good example is Shakuras is something they could have designed beautifully and make us all nerdgasm. But I found it disappointing compared to the scope of available Shakuras concept art and storytelling. Shakuras felt rushed. The Spear of Adun is cool yeah. But the entire protoss campaign felt like a chore instead of fun.

Nova Covert Ops however is a masterpiece. I was pleasantly suprised. Covert Ops is the best campaign Blizzard has ever created. And that includes Starcraft and Warcraft. Covert Ops is so stylish, none of the characters ar

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4 (you are here)

Education

As cited in Perspectives in Male Psychology, Louise Liddon & John Barry, page 79: > An Israeli study of nearly 30,000 pupils in more than 300 schools examined data for three cohorts of Jewish secular high-school seniors in the years 2000-2002 (Lavy, 2004). Student matriculation exams were routinely graded in two ways: an external grade which is blind to name and sex of the pupil, and an internal grade which is non-blind. The pupil's final grade is a mean of the internal and external grades. This study found that boys were given lower grades in the non-blind assessments across all nine subjects studied. The researcher, having ruled out the other possible explanations, concluded the discrepancy in scoring was a result of bias in the unblinded grading. A strength of this study is that it is a natural experiment.

The 2004 papers is freely available here. See also an updated version of the paper: Do gender stereotypes reduce girls' or boys' human capital outcomes? Evidence from a natural experiment (Lavy, 2008)

In PISA 2012 results: The ABC of Gender Equality in Education: Aptitude, Behaviour, Confidence (OECD, 2015) it was found that "teachers generally award girls higher marks than boys [for the same exact work]" (page 159): > The report also shows that teachers generally award girls higher marks than boys [for the same exact work], given what would be expected after considering their performance in PISA. This practice is particularly apparent in language-of-instruction courses. Girls’ better marks may reflect the fact that they tend to be “better students” than boys: they tend to do what is required and expected of them, thanks to better self-regulation skills, and they are more driven to excel in school. In additi

Disclaimer: This character analysis of Vyn contains spoilers for Cool Summer, Mercury in Retrograde, Mended Heart, Vyn's Personal Story, and Vyn's First birthday card. If you don't mind the spoilers, go ahead!

Overview of the Iceberg Theory

Hemmingway’s Iceberg Theory says that a character’s motivations and beliefs shine through actions and speech. It is known as the theory of omission, wherein details are revealed over time as the story progresses. Media of all genres rely on the iceberg theory to keep the audience interested and ensure continuity of plot elements and character arcs.

Vyn Richter: The Basics

Tears of Themis is a mobile game from Mihoyo, known for making the wildly popular Genshin Impact. It is a fictional investigative procedural where the player is a rookie lawyer working at Themis Law Firm. The first two chapters of the main story introduce the player to the four main love interests, eventually working with them in the secret NXX Investigation Project. The NXX investigates “anomaly cases,” often considered cold cases for conventional law enforcement. Playing through the main story chapters, personal story chapters, and card stories, one discovers that these four men from very disparate walks of life are not what they seem to be at first.

This analysis will focus on Vyn Richter, psychiatrist, and owner of the Giannovyn Institute of Mental Health Research. As a founding member of NXX, he is also known by the code name Adjudicator. Players meet Vyn in the second chapter of the main story, where they are tasked to bring documents as part of a covert psychological evaluation.

First Impressions

Vyn, in the first meeting, is described to have golden eyes, short silvery hair, and wearing a typical doctor’s outfit with a vest, dress shirt, and tie underneath. He is gentlemanly and composed—almost unflappable. The player first sees him making a card tower entirely from the ace of hearts. There is a thoughtful look in his eyes as he finishes placing the last two cards. Vyn then asks the player to try and grab a card while keeping the card tower’s structure intact. Though the game gives the illusion of choice, it all leads to the same conclusion. The card tower falls, and Vyn asks the player this question:

>“Now that you know how events will unfold, if you had the chance to turn back time…would you refuse my request?”

Vyn does cite that most people would refuse. It would be normal to do so. However, this is not just about the